A court in Wales has handed hefty jail sentences to former partners who ran a business selling fully-loaded Kodi boxes. Michael Jarman and Natalie Forber, who sold more than 1,000 devices over a two year period, pleaded guilty to operating a fraudulent business. Jarmain was jailed for 21 months while Forber, who had no previous convictions, was handed a 16-month suspended sentence.

Two movie studios have sued an employee of a Hawaiian phone store who allegedly recommended the 'pirate' application Showbox to a customer. The makers of the films 'Mechanic: Resurrection' and 'A Family Man' accuse the woman of contributory copyright infringement and demand damages in federal court.

This week, Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, announced the launch of a consultation on new legislative measures to clean up the 'Wild West' elements of the Internet. In response, music group BPI says the government should use the opportunity to tackle piracy with advanced site-blocking measures, repeat infringer policies, and new responsibilities for service providers.

A 22-year-old man from California has pleaded guilty to uploading a pirated copy of the movie Deadpool to Facebook. The film was shared to the social media network, shortly after it premiered, where it was viewed 6,386,456 times. The man was indicted following an FBI investigation last year and faces a one-year prison sentence.

In response to alleged failures by Ukraine in the fight against online piracy, last year the MPAA, RIAA and other groups asked the U.S. Government to impose sanctions while the European Commission warned that Ukraine risks damaging relations with the EU. But according to the head of Ukraine's cyber-police unit, complaints received by him are few in number and are actually going down.

Shani, the brains behind the popular Kodi-addon ZemTV, has asked his attorney to stop defending him. The London-based developer says he doesn't have the funds to fight the legal battle against Dish Networks in a US court. As a result, there's a high likelihood that the broadcast provider will win a default judgment.

Several major ISPs have blocked dozens of pirate torrent and streaming platforms following orders from the Singapore High Court. The action, which covers platforms including The Pirate Bay plus KickassTorrents and Solarmovie variants, follows a successful application from the MPAA, which accuses the platforms of flagrant copyright infringement.

Earlier this week Fairplay Canada, the coalition lobbying for a national piracy blocking mechanism, countered its critics in a detailed reply. Buried in the footnotes, the document also included a stab at TorrentFreak, 'discrediting' our coverage by labeling us a "pro-piracy" site. Interestingly, however, the same report later cites TorrentFreak as a reputable source on site-blocking jurisprudence.